These are the blogs of a man going where others have gone before. Trains are watched, cities photographed, and the past bravely explored as much as the future. Day trips, overnighters, vacations, and family visits are all opportunities for everything from trains to cityscapes to landscapes to ..... Other railroad videos and slideshows are on my YouTube Channel at gcm100x. If you would like to contribute to this blog, do so at http://paypal.me/Gregory643.

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Wednesday, November 3, 2010

The Great American Train Chase

I had a fantasy, many years ago, as I watched Amtrak. It became the Great Train Chase. A train chase, as you know, literally is the railfan sport of taking pictures of a train and this chasing the train to get ahead and than take another. This is done over and over again. This has its greatest impact when an excursion is chased, particular when a newly restored steam engine.
However, the GTC is a different animal with similar goals. The original began with the concept that one could take Amtrak a long way. The goal would be to take as many trains as possible over a period of time, let's say two weeks. From there the concept developed and grew.

The basic problem with that is that I might get to the Northeast Corridor and just stay there. So the rules would include the provision that we touch the four corners. We might have one corner in Florida, the second in San Diego, the fourth being Portland Oregon, and the final one being in Vermont. I might be fun to include in these corners, at least two change of stations in a city. For instance going from South Station to North Station in Boston or from Grand Central to Penn Station in New York.

So the idea being to ride as many miles or as many trains a possible. We could have the GTC begin where the participant wanted. This might allow for the greater advantage of the chaser. To make it more interesting or more (or too) complex, would be to add a element of scavenger hunt to the chase. Or to add to the accumulating of trains, the accumulating of accommodations. Adding these situations makes the scoring of the contest, more difficult.

In the day of reality shows such as Big Brother, Survivor and the Greatest Race, this might just fly on network TV. You never Know.